of the opposition from being present at their deliberations, they adopted the extraordinary mode of permitting a person moving for a committee to name all the individuals whom he desired to be appointed as members. They also resolved that, if the legislative council did not concur in a bill for paying their emissary to England, they would, in the plenitude of their power, pay him themselves out of the public revenue without their concurrence. This singular assumption stands recorded thus:

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Monday, 28th March 1831.-Resolved. that in the present state of the public affairs of this province, it is indispensably necessary that some person, having the confidence of this house, should proceed forthwith to England, to represent to his Majesty's government the interests and sentiments of the inhabitants of the province, and support the petitions of this house to his Majesty and both Houses of Parliament.

"Resolved, That in the event of the bill sent up by this house to the legislative council, on the 5th instant, not receiving the concurrence of that house in the present session, the Honourable Denis B. Viger, Esq., member of the legislative council, named agent of the province in the said bill, be requested to proceed

to England without delay, for the purposes mentioned in the foregoing resolution.

"Resolved,--That it is expedient that the necessary and unavoidable disbursements of the said Denis Benjamin Viger, for effecting the purposes aforesaid, not exceeding £1,000, be advanced, and paid to him by the clerk of this house, out of the contingent fund thereof, till such time as the said disbursements can be otherwise provided for."

And to shew their contempt of that co-ordinate branch of the legislature, and their determination to legislate for the colony without their concurrence, and by their sole authority, as well as to stigmatize the officers of the government as enemies of the country, they further resolved

"That until such time as the royal assent shall be given to a bill conformable to a resolution of this house of the 17th March 1825, for vacating the seats of members accepting offices, and similar to the bills passed by this house in the years 1826, 1827, 1828, and 1830, the second and fourth of which were reserved for the signification of his Majesty's pleasure, the seat of any member of this house who shall accept of any office or place of profit under the crown in this province, or become accountable for any

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public money hereafter appropriated within this province, shall, by this acceptance, be deemed by this house to be vacant, and a new writ shall be issued for a new election, as if such person so accepting was naturally dead; nevertheless such person shall be capable of being again reelected, and of sitting and voting in this house, as if his seat had not been vacated as aforesaid.

"Resolved, That any member of this house sitting and voting therein after such acceptance, be expelled this house."

At the same time, while they refused to government the means of paying its officers, they were most prodigal of the public money upon themselves and their dependants. There are certain funds appropriated for the contingent expenses of the house; and, legally, neither the house nor any of its officers have any right to apply them to any other purposes. It is a trust fund, on the expenditure of which doubtless a certain degree of discretion may be exercised, but still a discretion having certain limits. It is quite manifest that if the house could legally apply this fund to other objects. than those for which it was specifically appropriated, they would, for all the purposes of such application, exercise sole legislative power,

to the exclusion of the other two branches of the legislature. The case of Mr. Viger, above referred to, is a flagrant violation of this principle. The expenses for printing alone during this year (1831) for the assembly, at one only of its favourite establishments, was considerably over £5,000, exclusive of other presses; and this enormous sum is also exclusive of the cost of printing the laws, or of the expenses of the council. Pretexts were not wanted, where the disposition existed, to provide for their dependants. A subpoena was all that was necessary to obtain a warrant for a gratuity, which, to one individual, covered a charge of £120, and on one petition amounted to £700. "Some witnesses," says a gentleman of the bar at Quebec, "one sees as regularly about a fortnight after the sessions as swallows in the spring; and although they do not last quite so long, yet they hardly leave Quebec before either the house or the roads break up."

It will hardly be credited, that this house, which is so clamorous for cheap government, expends on itself thirteen thousand pounds a year-one thousand of which is paid to Mr. Papineau, the patriot; and that the gross amount of the legislative expenses is £18,000. Some idea of the purity "of our enslaved and

oppressed brethren" may be formed from the fact that, previous to 1829, the amount of monies voted for education had not exceeded £2,500. At that period it was found it could be turned to a better account than education, they therefore constituted the members of the house visitors of the schools in the counties they represent, the money being drawn on their certificates only, to which by law they are privileged to affix their crosses, instead of the more difficult process of writing their names. Since then the grants have wonderfully increased.

When the fourteen resolutions above referred to were passed, the governor, who had recently arrived, could not but feel astonish ed that the same people who had so lately expressed their delight and satisfaction at the report of the proceedings of parliament, and who knew that the recommendations of the committeewere in a train of execution, should be again as clamorous as ever, and very prudently and properly entreated them to put an end to complaint, by bringing forward at once